Two hours. More clutter around me than could be handled in that time. But surely, I could make progress somewhere. The pantry, the laundry room, the refrigerator, the still-disastrous office. All were clamoring for my attention–I had no lack of options.

But then my oldest son came bounding down the stairs, wondering what I was doing, why I was so quiet. He is used to commotion around him when I’m in the house; for the past few minutes, I had been thinking of what to do and the stillness had surprised him. “Mom, what are you doing? Do you want to do something together?”

He is turning 10 in just a few months, undeniable evidence that I have been a parent for nearly a decade and I still can’t believe it. I took in his near-tweenage 80-lb. body, growing by the minute, his face which still held enough sweet innocence to keep the thought of impending puberty at bay.

I smiled at him as I made my split-second decision. “Let’s play something together. I challenge you to a duel. These moments don’t happen often, you-and-me time.”

His grin was wide and instant. I made no progress with the clutter that day, during those precious two hours. Instead, I played games with my son and even did some pleasure reading. It was not yet officially the Sabbath, but in the end, what I realized I needed was rest, a break from trying to impose order on a house that constantly moves towards disorder. And I needed a chance to have fun reconnecting with my son; despite constantly being around one another we don’t always manage to do so.

We can’t always choose to capitulate to the messes in our lives, but when you have a chance to challenge your 4th grade son to a game of Wii swordplay instead of beating down the clutter, then take it. Even if you lose, you win.

The "Junk Bin"!

A quick post tonight, because I am busy de-cluttering the re-cluttered areas of my house in preparation for guests tomorrow! A few more things I have learned from this process:

• The process of de-junking one’s life is a discipline just like any other. It requires a sacrifice of time, leisure, and in my case, a personal preference to do anything else other than neatening our living areas. In this regard, it has been a good experience during Lent, a time in which experiencing some sort of sacrifice feels appropriate leading up to Holy Week.

• But we’ve hit a plateau. We’re barely managing to maintain that small area of space we have de-cluttered; progressing any further will require a significant investment of intentional time and energy. I need to devote an entire day, maybe more, to really start chipping away at other areas of disarray. This makes me think about spiritual growth, and how we often hit those plateaus, then hope that going through the normal motions will propel us further in our relationship with the Lord. But what we actually need is to be carving out more significant time and space to do the work of relationship-building with God that he always desires from us. I can pray and read the Bible every day, but that will just barely keep my spiritual clutter at bay.

• Clutter is just the first and most superficial level of getting one’s life in order. It’s easy enough to create the appearance of neatness and cleanliness, when your house is actually anything but neat and clean. I can so easily throw junk into a bin and hide it away, which maintains my uncluttered kitchen island, but doesn’t actually address the habits and ongoing messes of my life. How often do we project the appearance of spiritual health and cleanliness, when our secret closets and rooms house more messes than we ever want to show the world? I confess that I do this way more often than I should.

• Lastly, having the accountability of friends coming over to visit is a wonderful motivator to action. This is a reminder to me that we need the community of God to spur us on to good deeds and help us go a step further in our spiritual lives than we would without that accountability. Most of the time I would rather keep my spiritual life and the failures I experience as a Christian to myself. But I’m reminded that God never intended for us to walk our journeys alone, but to share our struggles and ask for the larger body of believers to provide support, insight, and assistance–if we have the humility to ask.

If I were really courageous, I would let my friends into my office and ask them to help me sort the disaster that it is. Perhaps a baby step for now is asking for help in organizing my junk bin. Every little bit of progress is worth celebrating, as I said in my previous post! (Or check out the first post on this topic here.)

How are you doing with your Lenten disciplines so far and what have you learned? Just remember, it’s 29 days until Easter!

This passes as "de-cluttered" for us!

We are a little over a week into Lent, and in this post I wanted to address some of the lessons I have begun to learn as we have been pursuing this particular choice of discipline. And, let me also answer some questions, such as, “How exactly is this working for you? Did you go through an entire decluttering of the house first?”

Uh, no. That would have proven nearly fatal for us to try to execute, such is the extent of clutter in our house. In fact, the enormity of the task has proven in the past to be the cause of my not addressing it; it just seemed too hopeless to make much of a dent in all the clutter, so in the end, why bother? But as a result of taking on this Lenten discipline, we have started chipping away at different trouble areas in our house, and as they become de-cluttered, we seek to keep them this way for the remainder of Lent (and hopefully beyond!) There is a practical element to what we are doing, as well; our house will play host to five additional family members who will visit on the Monday of Holy Week, so if all goes well what we accomplish in the de-cluttering will dovetail nicely with the arrival of the relatives! In any case, here are some lessons we’ve learned thus far along the way:

Our 9 yr. old's desk--better than mine!

1) Involve the kids! We began by encouraging and helping our older boys, who are 9 and 6 years old, to organize and clean their rooms, to a greater extent than they were doing on a daily basis. So, they are joining with us in this exercise by maintaining clutter-free rooms and helping us with the public areas. This doesn’t mean that their rooms don’t get messy during the course of a day, but once a day they strive to return their rooms back to neatness. What I have really enjoyed about this year’s Lenten discipline is that we are doing it together, as a family. So often we privatize our faith journey, when God clearly indicates that we are to live out our faith in the context of community. Joining together to do a Lenten practice, and spurring one another on to higher standards (both from parents to children and from children to parents!) has been a much more enjoyable endeavor than the years when I’ve given up something on my own.

2) Celebrate even the little successes. Our next goal was to work on our main floor, which in our split-level house includes our living room, dining room, and kitchen. These areas are constantly used in our house, all day long, and contain two clutter hot spots–the top of our grand piano, and our kitchen island. Once we neatened those areas, though, the question was, what next? Some days we haven’t had time to tackle any big projects, but we’ve done a closet, or a cabinet. And each time we successfully improve on an area that was previously a mess, we take a moment to enjoy it and affirm those who were involved.  This makes me think of how so often we avoid tackling the big spiritual problems we have in our lives because they seem too overwhelming. But perhaps if we can just start taking those baby steps, however small, we become emboldened to continue to strive for more and more ways to improve. Which brings me to the next point.

3) Improvement begets more improvement. The fascinating thing about this exercise is how, as we have become more intentional about de-cluttering, we have experienced the gratification that

Our kitchen island, clear finally! (Except for a visit from R2-D2.)

comes from these little successes, which only motivates us to keep on going. This is the exact opposite of how I felt before we began Lent when it came to our cluttered house. Now, even though there is still a sizable area that needs to be neatened, when I look around I no longer feel defeated. I feel they are opportunities. Perhaps the same applies as we start taking a focused, intentional look at areas of sin or struggle in our life. Perhaps, if we see them less as burdens that will never change, and more as opportunities for us to let God’s grace shine in and through us, we may actually begin to see real change occur. Maybe, at the end of the day, an attitude welcoming God to do His work in us, coupled with trust and faith that he will come through and bring his good work to completion, is the most important element that actually catalyzes those changes to happen in our lives.

So that is what we are learning thus far. Next post: is there potential for legalism to set in with this Lenten discipline? In order to keep things ordered, are there things that have to be let go, and if so, what?

(And check out my previous post if you haven’t already done so: “Why We’re Giving Up Clutter for Lent.“)

Thanks for visiting and for your comments!

So, instead of giving up sweets, chocolate, meat, media, or any of the other Lenten sacrifices that I’ve considered or done in the past, I approached my husband with the idea that we give up clutter for Lent. His first response was to laugh–not because he thought the idea was a bad one, necessarily, but because he doubted that I could actually stick with it. But now four days into Lent, with marked improvements emerging in different parts of our house already, he is all in, and our kids are, too.

The Bible does not appear to have much to say on the topic of neatness (although plenty to say in the Old Testament particularly about being unclean!) I admit that I haven’t yet done an extensive examination of Scripture on this topic, except to confirm that the famous saying “cleanliness is next to Godliness” appears nowhere in the Bible. But what had happened in our house was that over time, the discipline of trying to keep our house in order just became too much for me, to the point that it was just easier to be apathetic about it than to put it in order. And as neither my husband nor I are predisposed to neatness, the combination of our natural tendencies and the second law of thermodynamics–that the universe is always moving towards maximum disorder–conspired to work against us.

This is not to say that our house was always slovenly or that we never cleaned up. But it became habitual for everyone to drop things on the floor and leave them there, or fail to put things back in their proper place, or create a mess then forget about it. Something had to be done. Exasperated, my husband looked around one day and said, “It would be nice to have at least one area of our house reflect some peace and order!”

Something about the way he said it startled me, as I realized that the lack of order in our house had gone beyond just normal, everyday clutter, to the point that it was weighing his spirits down. I had just chosen to turn a blind eye to it all, but I realized that in some ways, what I had done was to develop a slothful attitude towards maintaining order in our house–and slothfulness, as we all know, is right there on the list of the seven worst sins. Worst of all, my kids were just all following my lead. Something had to be done.

So our decision to emphasize a reduction of clutter is actually a decision to battle a slothful spirit in our house, to be disciplined about how we treat the things in our house, to be considerate to one another, and to help create an atmosphere that reflects peace and not chaos. And the missional tie-in to this decision is this: so many times, I have hesitated to invite people over to our house because the effort involved to make our house presentable just seemed too overwhelming. Not because I needed to present ordered perfection, but because it seemed completely inhospitable to invite people to a pig sty for dinner!

In subsequent posts, I’ll share how things have been going, as well as bringing in some spiritual lessons I’ve learned by facing my own clutter demons. But I have to say that so far, this has been one of our best Lenten decisions yet! What do you think about this as a Lenten choice? Have you ever tried it in your family, and if so, what were the results?

(P.S. I have not forgotten the post about missional parenting as an antidote to over parenting….still mulling over it but will hopefully post it some time in the next couple of weeks!)

One way to do that is to intentionally and tangibly be involved in local and global compassion initiatives, giving ourselves away in Jesus’ name to people who are the last, the least, the forgotten and the forsaken in our society!

Read more here: My Missional Mom story.

We stressed very clearly in our study that this was NOT about serving for the sake of feeling good about ourselves or filling some void. It’s not another thing to add to our calendars and “busy up” our lives. We embraced that being “missional” is a mindset which really just pushes our calling as Christians to the forefront of our minds. Doing this opened our eyes to all of the ways we can live this out…it all unfolded very authentically and nothing felt forced at all. Again, I’m BLOWN AWAY! We’ve cried together, laughed together, and we’ve all supported one another as we’ve re-discovered our purpose!

We are continuing to study missional living this upcoming semester and this time we have 19 people signed up! The word is getting out!!!!

But God is funny because just as we thought we had it all under control and we were “sailing” through our life HE showed us that we didn’t have a clue where we were going! In April of 2010 I created a site on a social media outlet designed to support and encourage women. With no real direction I began to post a few things here and there including Scripture and chatted a bit in the little community of followers. I’m not sure why exactly but I got scared. It was my “Jonah” moment! I literally fled from the site too afraid to do what God was asking me to do.

But as we all know, there’s no hiding from God and HE never just leaves us alone. So in December 2011 God placed a call on my heart to start an on and offline women’s ministry. In absolute trembling fear but having a strong heart for women I obediently stepped out and began to post Scripture, daily encouragement, and messages grounded in biblical wisdom with conviction and direction on my social media site.

It hasn’t been long but the emails are already pouring in daily. Women whose lives are already changing as they turn their hearts and their minds to the things of God. Letters from women who are recommending their friends to come and hear the message God has for them. Women who DESIRE love, support, and encouragement in a community of godly women seeking to do the Lord’s work in their hearts, their homes, and our world. It has been so encouraging and a reaffirmation to stay the course God has designed for me without fear. Praise God.

That was enough to send me into a flurry of Mandarin-mania, and within six months, my son was learning all about tones and Pinyin and how to say useful phrases such as “the balloon flew away” in Chinese. And this was just one example.

Any program or activity that I thought would help him maximize his fullest potential, I’d sign him up for without hesitation. When he was an infant, I read that getting sufficient sleep was critical for a child’s brain and personality development, which turned me into an sleep-compulsive mom. My mother, witnessing the militant way I observed naptime and bedtime schedules, scoffed at my inflexibility. “We never did this with you guys,” she said of me and my brother. “You stayed up late, you slept when you slept, what is wrong with that? You turned out fine.”

Undeterred, I retorted: “But we could have turned out so much better!”

So yes, I admit it: I have been more than guilty of overparenting, multiple times over, with all three of my sons. I confess that I still am, on occasion. But in recent years, something happened to me. I realized that when it comes to the endless array of activities and options for our generation of kids, it is possible to plan too much of a good thing.

Recently, the social media universe went abuzz over an article in Boston Magazine entitled “Welcome to the Age of Overparenting.” Actually, in some ways the title is misleading: the trend towards overparenting has been around for a while, for the decade I’ve been a parent at least, and probably for as long as the children of the Baby Boomers have been school-aged. Whatever the causes of the trend, I was tired of feeling as though I was making parenting decisions based on a lemming-like response of “everybody else is doing it.” And so, out went Chinese school and a whole host of other classes, courses, and activities. Our kids each play one instrument, and our older boys are involved with baseball in the spring. Once a week, they go to AWANA. But that is it, and it feels like more than enough. In addition, most importantly, my kids play a ton, although their options for playmates are sorely limited after school. Everyone else is too busy!

It’s so hard to chart a different course; the temptation to try to keep up with other families and their children is unbelievably potent. Even after our decision to start scaling back and give our kids more time to just be kids again, I would forget the reasons for doing so. “Are you signing up for soccer? You have to start right when they’re four years old otherwise they’ll be behind!” one friend told me, sending my mind reeling about whether my kids were doomed to a life of athletic spectatorship. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to immediately check and see if there were still room for late registrations.

What has helped me as I have sought to embrace some sort of antidote to the pressure to overparent has been to do three things in particular, two of which I’ll mention in this post:

1. Constantly ask “Why?”

As in, “Why are we choosing to do this?” So often I found myself opting to sign up our kids for this or that because that was what was the norm in families around us, without critically assessing whether the choice really made sense for us, whether my kids would truly enjoy or benefit from the particular activity, whether there would be any potential negative ramifications on our family life from the additional commitment, and most importantly, what my underlying motivation was for making this choice for our kids. Drilling down the the “why” question is a simple way to discipline ourselves to make wiser choices as parents.

2. Remember the point of parenthood

It was amazing how many times, when I really dug into the true reason for why I was having our kids take this summer class or that sports lesson, that it all came down to a desire to have them be glorified somehow, someday. Too often we think that our job is to help our children reach an enviable state, so that by the time colleges evaluate their potential, they will be deemed an excellent addition. But conceiving parenthood and our children’s futures in this way entirely misses the point of why God gives us children at all.

God gives us the blessing of children not to further their future purposes, but to further His overall plan and purpose. Certainly he wants for us to help our kids invest in and develop their talents and abilities–but not for their own glory. I think too often, Christian parents forget this point, which is why our parenting looks so similar to that of families around us.

Yet we are called to “set [our] minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2), carving out a different parenting path that will reflect “the peace of Christ” ruling our hearts, as opposed to wallowing in anxiety-ridden worry about our children’s future. Otherwise, the longer we pursue an “overparenting” type of approach in our families, the more we will ultimately be teaching our children that we are consumed by earthly approaches and failing to trust in the One who created our kids to begin with.

(In the next post, I’ll pose a third suggestion: that missional parenting can also be a great antidote to our overparenting culture. Stay tuned!)

What do you think about the current trend towards overparenting in our culture? How do you and your family strive to combat this trend in your own families? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I was in the kitchen with some church friends who were over for dinner when suddenly, Harry burst into the room, breathless and excited. “Mom! Mom! Scott wants to become a Christian!!”

My hands were completely messy with food preparation and at first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I asked my son for some clarification, and he said that he had taken his Bible out to Scott, explained the Gospel message and had asked if Scott wanted to pray to become a believer, to which he had answered yes.

I sent my husband out to join the boys and to find out whether this was, in fact, an accurate assessment. He huddled together with my elder two sons and with Scott, and I kept peeking out the window to see what was going on. It looked to be a serious discussion, and then 10-15 minutes later, I peeked again to see that they were all praying.

And soon the heavens rejoiced.

We are still in the process of trying to help Scott understand what it means to follow Jesus, that a one-time prayer is just the beginning and not the entirety of the process. His decision is made more complicated by the fact that we don’t know his parents well, if at all, and his family is not Christian.

When I saw Scott the next day, I asked if he had mentioned what happened to his parents. He said, “Oh yes, I told my mom. She seemed happy about it, and she said I had the freedom to choose my own way.” So, at least his parents weren’t upset about this life transition, but nor do I sense that they are trying to encourage his fledgling faith.

Now I feel that our family has a spiritual responsibility to try to help Scott develop and grow as a Christian, especially given his family situation. As I explained to my “Jesus freak” son, being God’s witnesses in the world is only the beginning of our mission; we are also to be about making disciples, not just converts, which means that we need to teach and train Scott to know what it means to follow Jesus. Our job has only just begun!

But what has convicted me as I have rejoiced with our kids are two sobering questions, having witnessed my kids do with ease and with passion what I find much more difficult myself:

1) Do I really love Jesus so much that I cannot help but want to share him with others the way my kids do?

2) Do I truly understand what it means to love my friends and neighbors, so much that I cannot help but share about Jesus to them?

While I was spending time with my fellow Christian friends, my kids taught me anew what it means to participate in God’s mission amongst those who do not already know Jesus, as a way to reflect their love for Christ and for others. And they are inspiring my husband and I embrace our mission to reach out to Scott’s parents as well. I have had their phone number for quite a while but just haven’t made the effort to call, as I wonder if they just perceive us as the funny religious family down the street.

But it’s time I embrace more of my inner freak. And I’m thankful that my kids are showing me the way. This story is “to be continued”…but in the meantime, when have kids taught you about what it means to love God and love others?